Uploaded August 2014 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Here's a virtual movie of the great John Keats reading his "Ode to Psyche"
"Ode to Psyche" is a poem by John Keats written in spring 1819. The poem is the first of his 1819 odes, which include "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale". "Ode to Psyche" is an experiment in the ode genre, and Keats's attempt at an expanded version of the sonnet format that describes a dramatic scene. The poem serves as an important departure from Keats's early poems, which frequently describe an escape into the pleasant realms of one's imagination. Keats uses the imagination to show the narrator's intent to resurrect Psyche and reincarnate himself into Eros(love). Keats attempts this by dedicating an "untrodden region" of his mind to the worship of the neglected goddess.
The poem does not describe the plot of the original Cupid and Psyche myth: according to Harold Bloom, the poem "has little to do with the accepted myth".[10] In the original myth, Aphrodite punishes Psyche, a well admired girl, by having Cupid use his power to make her fall in love. Cupid, instead, falls in love with her, but he could only be with her in the cover of darkness in order to disguise his identity. Curious, she uses a light to reveal Cupid's identity, but he flees from her presence. Psyche begins to search after Cupid, and Aphrodite forces her to perform various tasks before she could be united with her love. After nearly dying from one of the tasks, Cupid asks Zeus to transform Psyche into a goddess so the two can be together.[10]
The action of "Ode to Psyche" begins with a narrator witnessing two individuals embracing. The narrator immediately recognizes Cupid and is astonished when he recognizes Psyche:
Kind Regards
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2014
Here's a virtual movie of the great John Keats reading his "Ode to Psyche"
"Ode to Psyche" is a poem by John Keats written in spring 1819. The poem is the first of his 1819 odes, which include "Ode on a Grecian Urn" and "Ode to a Nightingale". "Ode to Psyche" is an experiment in the ode genre, and Keats's attempt at an expanded version of the sonnet format that describes a dramatic scene. The poem serves as an important departure from Keats's early poems, which frequently describe an escape into the pleasant realms of one's imagination. Keats uses the imagination to show the narrator's intent to resurrect Psyche and reincarnate himself into Eros(love). Keats attempts this by dedicating an "untrodden region" of his mind to the worship of the neglected goddess.
The poem does not describe the plot of the original Cupid and Psyche myth: according to Harold Bloom, the poem "has little to do with the accepted myth".[10] In the original myth, Aphrodite punishes Psyche, a well admired girl, by having Cupid use his power to make her fall in love. Cupid, instead, falls in love with her, but he could only be with her in the cover of darkness in order to disguise his identity. Curious, she uses a light to reveal Cupid's identity, but he flees from her presence. Psyche begins to search after Cupid, and Aphrodite forces her to perform various tasks before she could be united with her love. After nearly dying from one of the tasks, Cupid asks Zeus to transform Psyche into a goddess so the two can be together.[10]
The action of "Ode to Psyche" begins with a narrator witnessing two individuals embracing. The narrator immediately recognizes Cupid and is astonished when he recognizes Psyche:
Kind Regards
All rights are reserved on this video recording copyright Jim Clark 2014
